Steepsters: What's your worst experience with tea and caffeine?

Quite frankly I get headaches if I can’t get my morning cuppa and get a bit irritated:) Its the price of all things caffeinated but worth the price for a cuppa “jeeling” and would I still drink even if I have headaches;) lol

29 Replies

Funny. I’m the opposite. I’m pretty sensitive to caffeine and I get headaches because I drink caffeine, not because I lack it. If I have too much I get agitated and I feel this pressure right behind my eyeballs. I think I’m sensing my heightened blood pressure when I get my caffeine headaches. I also get shaky and start babbling too much. And I become irritable.
I’m sure it’s not caffeine withdrawal because I can spend several days drinking herbals and tisanes and feel just fine. Then, one cup of black tea later, I’m rubbing my eyeballs and asking myself if it was worth it. Too bad tea just tastes so darn good. :)

Of course, I also used to drink black tea to help me stay up and study since I hear this is supposed to help. Unfortunately, it just made me feel miserable for the reasons listed above, and still sleepy! My body sucks.

I know what ya mean! The head is already hurting, there is some giddiness, heart is thumping a bit but when there is a welcoming aroma and flavor to match it… its worth the hurt if you ask me! I kind of alarmed with the high blood pressure, did you drink a cup of joe along with tea? If so, I had the same sensations with heart palpitations! Think 15 cups a bit to much? lol

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Dinosara said

I’ve never experienced caffeine withdrawl headaches… until recently. Of course before I started drinking tea regularly I never consumed caffeine in any kind of regularlity, and I still can go a couple of days with no tea and be fine. But then if I go long periods of time without any tea I start getting headaches, which I assume is related to the caffeine. I’m not too worried about it… plenty of people consume way more caffeine than I do on a daily basis.

Caffeine really affected me when I started to drink tea like crazy, other than that my usually caffeine intake was in a form of coffee, fizz drinks, tea etc. Its only when I started to get use to continuous caffeine intake I can actually sleep off the affects and smooth sailing from then on

No, didn’t have any joe. I’m not a fan of coffee. Just tea. Like I said, I’m sensitive. The high blood pressure comes from the caffeine. I hear people who tolerate caffeine better don’t feel this effect as acutely. And, yes, 15 cups may be a bit much. :) drink some decaf or honeybush at the end of the day.

Oops. Replied to the wrong thread. :) sorry.

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well, I need my tea to wake up in the morning. but it’s not like it’s a dependency, because before I started drinking tea I just spent my days in a groggy haze.

usually, caffeine doesn’t affect me much – except one day I went a little overboard and had serious trouble going to sleep

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MegWesley said

I have never really had any bad experiences from caffeine with tea.

I had a pretty bad one with coffee when my heart rate rose, I got really jittery, my entire body flushed red, and I could not stop moving. That was with the instant stuff. I assumed that was from the caffeine. Never did it again.

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The worst I get is sometimes, if I drink tea after, oh… 3pm …I can’t fall asleep for ages! I work 7am-4pm M-F. I have to get to bed by 9 or 9:30, sleep no later than 10:30 on a bad night. I once couldn’t so much as doze until 2am as a result of drinking tea after work.

I’m trying to build up my tolerance, but it’s a tricky process!

Also, @Dinosara – Well done! We’re definitely in the same wavelength. ;)

Dinosara said

Haha, yeah awesome username! :D

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timmya9433 said

I can drink 5 to 6 cups of strong black tea a day and not have any serious jitters. My issue is if I don’t drink enough a day I can get “sleepy” and “headachey”. One time I didn’t have any caffeine for a couple of days and my head pounded! Never again. lol

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DukeGus said

I rarely drank coffee before I started drinking tea regularly.
Sometimes, like yesterday, when I get parcel with teas I drink like 5 different teas with at least 5 steeps every tea so…I get a little dizzy but nothing even close to addiction. And I mainly drink like 1-2 lt of tea most of the days.

Theanine kinda counters the effect of the other alkaloids, so maybe tea gives a lighter addiction than coffee?

Certainly it does as with green tea! Its been used to treat anxiety and high blood pressure and quite notably as a relaxant.

DukeGus said

Didn’t know that, thx mate :)

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Uniquity said

I don’t have any discernible reaction to caffeine, so I guess my worst experience is that it doesn’t make me more alert or awake or anything. Mostly I appreciate it as I can drink black tea all day and all night and still go to sleep, but sometimes it is a bummer.

Ninavampi said

I identify. I have always been a tiny bit jealous of people who can have caffeine and magically be woken up or stay awake. I honestly feel it has no or negligible effects on me…

In fact, a warm cup of tea can help me fall asleep!

It’s always seemed to me that those people can wake up with caffeine only because they are already addicted to it and they would have withdrawal symptoms otherwise. I say this because I’m super sensitive to caffeine and all it does it give me jitters and make it harder than ever to focus on anything since everything suddenly becomes a distraction.

I do enjoy a nice cup of rooibos or honeybush to relax before bed though. :)

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I am a very lucky person I have never had any real issues with caffeine. I used to be a huge coffee drinker. I would go thru 2 or 3 pots of coffee a day. I heard coffee is actually good for you if you limit yourself to a few cups a day and the coffee is black and if really need to have something in it a natural sweetener is okay. I am not going to lie even being on a tea community I still drink a morning cup of coffee but it is 1 cup that I make from my aeropress vs my 3 pots I used to drink. I think I have improved in my opinion. LOL
Anthony thanks for this interesting discussion and hope you continue to enjoy your morning cup of jeeling. : )

I go back and forth from time to time with coffee either I brew myself a pot or bought me bag or two. My routine now is generally tea throughout the day and If do have some coffee I’ll try to buy me some of those bags of blue mountain coffee straight from Jamaica but the only thing stopping me is the price at 45$ a bag. Connoisseurs and buffs on the other side swear by its tastes and complexion just as much as Ethiopian coffee but I currently don’t see myself buying that bag soon. Quite tempting though…

If you get deep into coffee you will need a a good burr grinder then a roaster which can be very expensive. I have a Aeropress that makes 1 cup of coffee at a time which is good for me since I am the only person in my house hold that drinks coffee and the coffee I am using right now is Cafe Britt Costa Rica Organic Shade Grown Coffee which makes me a good cup of coffee. So, I will have my morning cup then its tea the rest of the day. Honestly, I am digging traditional teas better than my coffee but shhhh don’t tell anyone I said that because I will so deny it! LOL!!!
Thanks for your reply back. Have a nice day.

I remember having a grinder but it aint fancy and ended being given away :( I grinded some beans a few times in the machine and it turned out to be quite good enough for a Turkish coffee grind which is fine as baby powder. Well, sure enough just when I needed it for my former love and obsession in Turkish coffee I can’t get the grounds to finely pulverized. Machines out there in stores or in coffee shops will ground it to a Turkish setting but not really a Turkish grind which is needed to so melt over when brewing in an ibrik or cezve ( triangular pot). The brew ended up waterier than a thick foamy liquid and brewing prove to be difficult and temperamental! Hot coffee all over the stove:( I prefer tea better less of a headache but if I could just have Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee in Turkish style my life would be complete! lol

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Before I got prescribed some actual medication for my ADHD, I was trying to self-medicate for focus with caffeine. I started out with one Red Bull at a time and worked up to about 4-5 of those Monster drinks a day. (Yes, I know.) People around me joked about how I was the sort of person, “who drinks coffee to calm down and gets jittery drinking water,” but it reached the point where it overloaded even my brain, and I sounded like a chipmunk on speed. My perception of it was that everyone else was a bit slow, but I got told outright by some friends that I was incomprehensible in conversations because I was starting a new sentence every 3-4 words without being slightly aware of the fact that I wasn’t actually communicating out loud all the things speeding through my head.

Whew. Well, I ended up on some actual meds, thank christ (same daily dosage after 4 years if anyone’s wondering!), but you can imagine that I’m fairly immune to caffeine now. Actually, I’m somewhat immune to most drugs. So I can drink black tea right up until one in the morning, and then sleep hard afterward!

I used to drink a lot of Coke/Pepsi and can get mild withdrawal headaches sometimes if I stop drinking them suddenly, but that’s random and not predictable. Not certain if I’ve gotten that with tea yet. Hard to tell, because it’s a rare day I don’t have a cup.

DukeGus said

“Actually, I’m somewhat immune to most drugs.”

Ha haha haha hahah aha
Mate you are pretty funny!

you junkie lol

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